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Transcript of Cognos c8v3 Value From c8 Platform
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vALUE from the
Cognos 8 platform
THE RIgHT FoUndATIon
FoR yoUR PERFoRmAncE
mAnAgEmEnT joURnEy
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While every attempt has been made to ensure that the information in this document is accurate and complete, some typographical
errors or technical inaccuracies may exist. Cognos does not accept responsibility for any kind of loss resulting from the use of
information contained in this document.
This page shows the publication date. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice.
This text contains proprietary information, which is protected by copyright. All rights are reserved. No part of this document may be
photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, or translated into another language
with out the prior written consent of Cognos Incorporated.
The incorporation of the product attributes discussed in these materials into any release or upgrade of any Cognos software product as well as the timing of any such release or upgrade is at the sole discretion of Cognos.
U.S. Government Restricted Rights. The accompanying materials are provided with Restricted Rights. Use, duplication for disclosure by
the Government is subject to the restrictions in subparagraph (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause at
DFARS 252.227-7013, or subparagraphs (c) (1) and (2) of the Commercial Computer Software Restricted Rights at 48CFR52.227-
19,
as applicable. The Contractor is Cognos Corporation, 67 South Bedford Street, Burlington, MA 01803-5164.
This edition published January 2008
Copyright 1989-2008 Cognos Incorporated.
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value rom the Cognos 8 platorm
Tb o Contnts
Introdction ................................................................................................................................3
How dos IT h ryon trst nd s th sm iw o dt cross th orgniztion? ...........4
Provide consistent data access across disparate sources ..........................................................4
Deliver consistent, business-usable inormation, rom disconnected
data sources and dierent user demands.................................................................................5
Ensure data quality and validating data with business experts ............... ............... ................ ..6
Build a high perorming, robust data model ...........................................................................7
How dos IT sc to spport mission-critic dpoymnts nd minimiz strin on IT? ...............8
Condently deploy and predictably perorm ..........................................................................8
Meet service commitments with a complete view o system activity ............... ............... .......... 9
Manage the process o introducing change ...........................................................................10
How dos IT gin rom xisting instmnts with th fxibiity to rspond to nw dmnds? ..... 11
Simpliy the eort to deploy and manage perormance management ....................................11
Adopt the preerred inrastructure strategy ...........................................................................11
Extend capabilities as user needs change...............................................................................12
Smmry ...................................................................................................................................13
abot Cognos ............................................................................................................................13
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value rom the Cognos 8 platorm
Introdction
Many actors infuence your companys perormance.
But ew areas are more important than your organizations
decision-making ability. Getting answers and acting on
them means integrating reporting and analysis, planning,
and measuring and monitoringacross your organization.This integrated approach is the hallmark o a perormance
management system.
It is being called upon to seamlessly integrate inormation,
technology, and process. The wide range o required
capabilities, the number o users and communities
involved, the large and varied data sources and the
complexity o enterprise inrastructures drive important
considerations or IT when assessing the platorm and
architecture o perormance management solutions.
In working with our customers to deliver perormance
management solutions, Cognos has ound ITconsiderations can be summarized with three key
top-o-mind questions:
How does IT have everyone trust and use the same
view o data across the organization?
How does IT scale to support mission-critical
deployments and minimize strain on IT?
How does IT gain value rom existing investments
with the fexibility to respond to new demands?
Having a solid oundation in place to address todays
requirements and support the perormance management
journey is critical to ensure long-term successul PM
implementations. With the right platorm in place, the
solution can change and grow as the organizations needsevolve - whether that be new capabilities, new users, new
data sources, new technology environments all without
adding extra burden on IT.
The Cognos 8 platorm provides an open, enterprise-
class platorm as the oundation required to address
perormance management needs across the organization.
The Cognos 8 platorm enables organizations with:
Complete, consistent access to inormation the
business understands, owns and trusts.
Broad system management to condently deploy
manage and scale while achieving on time service
commitments.
A platorm built upon a modern service-oriented
architecture to leverage existing inrastructure, easily
adapt to change, and embrace open standards or
long-term extensibility.
With the Cognos 8 platorm, you have the capacity to
deliver on business needs today and grow your solution
as your perormance management journey evolves.
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How dos IT h ryon trst nd s th sm iw o dt cross th orgniztion?
The Cognos 8 platorm helps data proessionals deliver
reliable, consistent, and timely data or reporting,
scorecarding, and other perormance management
capabilities.
Data modelers need reliable access to data, to choose
the best method to source it, and adapt their approach
as business demands change. They deliver the relevant
inormation so everyone works rom the same numbers.
Data analysts work with data modelers to translate
data so its digestible or business users.
Business users need to work with data modelers to
improve data quality and accuracy, to ensure wide
user adoption.
With the Cognos 8 platorm business users gain access
to all data through a consistent business model. IT canaccess data wherever it resides, through a choice o data
sourcing approaches, to deliver inormation in a complete,
consistent and accurate view that business understands,
owns and trusts. With Cognos, IT can have condence in
the inormation they provide to drive perormance.
Provide consistent data access across
disparate sources
The Cognos 8 platorm provides consistent access to
all data sources with a single query service. It oers the
choice o sourcing strategies to deliver inormation romwherever it resides with optimized query perormance.
With the Cognos 8 platorm, data proessionals gain
access to data using published interaces across transaction
systems, warehouses (relational and OLAP), fat, legacy
or modern sources (XML, JDBC, etc.). The single query
service generates consistent and predictable queries. It
understands and leverages the source system strengths by
using a combination o open standards such as SQL99
as well as native SQL and native MDX to optimize data
retrieval across and or all these dierent data providers.
Once data is accessed, IT must determine the best
sourcing strategy based on how it will be used by
the business. I the business is looking or historical
summaries or a comparison o plan vs. actual, you need
to aggregate, calculate, and capture the history o thedata. Alternatively, the business may need immediate
up-to-date insight into inormation across one or
many operational sources. Another consideration or
the data proessional is whether there is a standard
data integration vendor in place. Data proessionals
need the reedom to choose the best method to source
each data set, mix and match depending on need, and
have the fexibility to change approaches as business
demands change or as new data sources or data views
are required.
Access all data sources from wherever they reside.
The Cognos 8 platorm provides the ull range o
sourcing strategies rom ETL or data warehousing to
enterprise inormation integration (EII) or ederated
views o operational data to direct access to a data
source. It also provides data caching options to ensure
you access all data sources, and that you have choices to
optimize perormance without having to change backend
systems. For example, IT can deploy OLAP persistent
caches or EII virtual caching techniques to ensure optima
perormance when ederating data across multiple
operational systems.
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value rom the Cognos 8 platorm
For ETL, the Cognos 8 platorm oers a data movement
service with a patented dimensional ramework. This
ramework can conorm data and manage complex
hierarchies into optimized ormats or perormance
management. The data movement service provides arapid development environment to build and manage
data marts and enterprise data warehouses.
For EII, Cognos oers an out-o-the box, high-
perormance, ederated capability to combine data rom
multiple sources on the fy to enrich reporting.
In addition, the Cognos 8 platorm integrates with
third party data integration providers such as IBM or
Inormatica, helping customers leverage an enterprise
data integration standard.
Deliver consistent, business-usable
inormation, rom disconnected data
sources and dierent user demands
Data modelers struggle to deliver a consistent set o
inormation across the business community. They ace
many dierent user needs and data sources that dont
tie together. They need to deliver that inormation in a
context and ormat that business can understand without
having to know SQL. They need to ree themselves
rom business demands o having to explain the data, or
having to duplicate data or dierent views or languages,and ensure everyone gets the right inormation they
need and no more so they dont get overwhelmed.
Complicating matters, data modelers must deliver this
inormation in a timely way to the business.
The Cognos 8 platorm provides a common business
view, modeled once and deployed anywhere, in any
language with the ability to publish and secure the
inormation so the users access only the inormation that
is pertinent to them.
A single business model and multi-tier modeling
environment allows IT to deliver data in a ormat that iseasy to use and understand with the physical complexity
hidden rom the user. This multi-tiered model provides
the fexibility and independence to evolve the underlying
data sources without aecting the view provided to the
business. With the central metadata repository o model,
business rules, dimensions and calculations, IT ensures
they deliver consistent data to the business regardless
o the data source. The metadata model in the Cognos
8 platorm provides multi-lingual capabilities. This
eliminates the need to duplicate the model in dierent
languages, a process that may create inconsistencies.
The Cognos 8 platorm provides a single viewo inormation to all users across all capabilities.
It provides a consistent business view o inormation in
terms people understand to orm the common oundation
or inormation sharing on an enterprise scale.
Open data access
Broad Inormation reach. Data proessionals gain
access to data wherever it resides using published
interaces across transaction systems, warehouses
(relational and OLAP), fat, legacy or modern sources.
Flexible data sourcing. Data analysts have a
choice o data sourcing strategies: rom ETL, to
enterprise inormation integration (EII) ederation,
to direct sourcing to address range o perormance
needs and data required by the business.
Data caching. Data proessionals can optimizeperormance or end users via EII virtual caching,
Cognos OLAP PowerCubes, and in-memory caching.
Single query service. Data proessionals can be
assured o consistent and predictable queries across
all data sources (OLAP and relational).
A key differentiator for Cognos at this level [Data
Tier] of the architecture is the common metadata
model that acts as a solid buffer between the
business and IT sides of BI.
Ovum, Cognos 8 Business Intelligence Evaluation
Exec Summary, January, 2007.
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Providing a common business model does not mean
overwhelming users with a view o the entire enterprise
model. The Cognos 8 platorm allows modelers to create
one model and then publish sections to address dierent
business users needs. This means only the relevantinormation is delivered to each user community.
In many cases, there are also data governance guidelines to
restrict user access to certain inormation. Modelers need
to comply with data governance requirements without
the burden o generating separate models or reports.
With granular data security in the Cognos 8 platorm, IT
can establish security at the role level down to the row
or column, ensuring users views are restricted to just the
inormation they are permitted to see. This type o security
enables compliance without additional workload or IT.
Finally, data modelers must respond quickly to thevaried business demands or specic views o data and
do so without compromising the enterprise model or
making the user wait. With Cognos 8 sotware, IT can
create multidimensional PowerCubes to model complex
dimensional structures, apply business rules, and set
security needed by the business. This allows IT to iterate
quickly to respond to one-o business demands and
publish those cubes as part o an enterprise model. It also
means IT can create combinations o data unique to the
business need, and ensure the business continues to use
the enterprise model as its source o inormation.
Ensure data quality and validating data with
business experts
Data analysts need to engage the business domain experts
to validate and correct the data in partnership withthem. In this way, you can resolve data quality issues and
business stops questioning the data.
The Cognos 8 platorm, in partnership with Inormatica,
provides visibility into the quality o all the data. With
this acility, you can identiy issues, quantiy them, and
resolve them by systematically applying data quality
business rules and creating data business can trust. With
complete data coverage, you can cleanse all data required
or the perormance management solution.
Provide business with information they trust and own.
A key success actor to ensuring quality data isengaging the business throughout the process.
While IT is responsible or getting the raw data,
they do not own the data contents or are necessarily
aware o its context. This is the role o the business.1
The Cognos solution engages users to prole, parse,
and standardize to help resolve data quality issues.
Consistent business inormation
Consistent inormation: Data modelers provide a single
metadata model, modeled once, deployed anywhere.
Publish inormation to all users or all capabilities.
Common business model. Data modelers apply
consistent business rules, dimensions, and
calculations to data, regardless o its source.
Multi-lingual model. Data modelers support multiple
languages in one model, to avoid duplication.
Model once, package or many. Data modelers
build one model and deliver inormation
in digestible-sized subsets or specic user
communities. Users receive only the inormation
relevant to them and are not overwhelmed.
Data security. Security can apply to users or
groups and down to granular row and column
security. Data governance can be sustained.
Ensuring data quality
Complete data coverage. Data analysts cleanse all
data critical to perormance management.
Profle, parse, and standardize. Data analysts
uncover and x data anomalies. Business users
identiy, quantiy, and resolve data quality issues.
Data quality metrics. Data analysts track the
health o data over time, the same as any other
corporate asset.
1 Data Quality: The rst metric that matters or perormance management success,
Jennier Schmitz (Cognos) and Tom Golden (Inormatica), eBiz.com, January 2, 2008
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value rom the Cognos 8 platorm
With visibility into data quality metrics, the business
can track the health o the data over time, urther
increasing the condence in the data.
Build a high perorming, robust data model
Data modelers need to be able to manage the process o
building the metadata model to deliver the highest quality
model to represent the business.
Dierent modelers need to be able to collaborate across
the team, ensure there is an enterprise representation o
the business, and make sure everyone develops the best
possible model that is easy to build, maintain and manage.
Creating a high quality model rom the initial design
mean less time troubleshooting and more time working
eectively with business partners without being bogged
down in minutia.
The Cognos 8 platorm enables teams o modelers with
built-in proven practices to build optimal, multi-tier
models that insulate the business rom the physical
complexity, and enable easier management o changes.
Recognizing that metadata is the critical oundation or
successul solutions, the Cognos 8 platorm includes
Model Advisor, as an automated tool to identiy areas
o the model that require urther examination and
recommends possible actions. It provides novice modelers
with a great tool to assist them, and more experienced
modelers with a diagnostic tool to speed design.
Once a model is built, modelers require an ecient means
to manage change. One small alteration can have a large
ripple eect on the model and downstream BI content.
The Cognos 8 platorm provides a multi-tier model with
reusable objects to separate physical models rom business
models to decrease the downstream eect o changes.
As changes are made, modelers can track them with
the ability to capture who, when and why the model
was changed. In addition, report dependencies and
impact analysis on unpublished models allow modelers
to understand the impact o data changes on existingreports and user communities. Impact assessments can
also be saved to provide an audit record or used to
automate update scripts. With model retargeting, data
modelers can modiy or replace the physical layer o
the model, or example when moving between test and
production environments, without any disruption to end
users in the logical layers.
Enterprise perormance management solutions might
have a team o modelers working on an enterprise model
or, have existing metadata models with tools already in-
house. With the Cognos 8 platorm, a team o modelers
can access and work on dierent segments o the modeland bring the segments together or a single view. You
can access any existing metadata through pre-built
bridges with other metadata modeling environments
(data integration tools such as IBM and Inormatica;
modeling tools like Erwin and Oracle Designer; and
source catalogues like relational databases, ERP).
The Cognos 8 platorm provides capabilities to help data
modelers looking to optimize their models and manage
change more eectively.
Optimized modeling
Model Advisor. Data modelers access proven
practices and modeling guidelines to identiy
model inconsistencies and improve model quality.
Multi-participant modeling. A team o modelers
works on dierent segments o the model and
bring the segments together or a single view.
Multi-tier modeling. Data modelers create
separate physical models rom business models to
decrease the downstream eect o changes.
Model retargeting. Data modelers modiy or
replace the physical layer o the model with no
disruption to end users in the logical layers.
Impact analysis. Data modelers can understand
the impact o model changes on users and track
change details.
Build a high quality model based on Cognos proven practices.
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How dos IT sc to spport mission-critic dpoymnts nd minimiz strin on IT?
Technology hurdles can dampen business and IT
enthusiasm or new applications and solutions such
as business intelligence and planning. Users without
access. Users accessing the wrong inormation. Poor
perormance. Random system errors. All o these shakebusiness condence and reduce the user communitys
willingness to adopt the solution. Worse still, they
undermine ITs condence in the technology itsel.
IT managers need to trust the technology solution, know it
enables them to meet required service level commitments,
provide the right access to all users, and minimize the risk o
extra eort and overtime rom the IT team. This condence
needs to be there at the time o initial deployment, and grow
as the solution extends across the business.
Confdently deploy and predictably perormThe Cognos 8 platorm scales across the enterprise,
providing IT managers with the capacity to plan the required
resources or the deployed solution. The Cognos 8 platorm
oers built-in ault tolerance, predictable linear response,
and the ability to implement comprehensive security; all
without client-side install or downloads or end-users.
The platorm oers a set o peer-to-peer services. Peer-
to-peer means no service is considered more important
than any other, and there is no concept o a master service
or bottleneck. Every service is capable o complete ault
tolerance as any request can be handled by any service o
that type in the conguration.
These peer-to-peer services are also loosely coupled so
no service needs to know how the other services do their
job, nor what they are doing at any particular time, or
even where they reside across the heterogeneous platorm
environment. This provides tremendous reliability
because the conguration automatically has redundancy
built-in to ensure uninterrupted access. I any service
or server happens to ail, the platorm can absorb the
workload while a service attempts to restart itsel.
For the initial rollout and as the solutions scales, IT
managers need to understand the resource requirements
and be able to predict uture requirements as workloads
increase. The Cognos 8 platorm provides a linearscalable solution that can scale up and/or out so IT
administrators can manage with predictable response
times. The Cognos 8 platorm is tested every release, both
internally and externally to ensure linear scalability. With
the most recent testing, completed at the IBM Innovation
Center or Business Partners, the platorm was proven to
scale linearly to 160,000 users.2
Prooven to scale to meet enterprise requirements.
2 Typical BI day: Scalability testing at the IBM Innovation Center or business partners,
January 2008.3 Symantec Security Assessment: Cognos Web application penetration test, August, 2006.
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value rom the Cognos 8 platorm
In addition to reliability and scalability, security is
another critical issue or IT. The Cognos 8 platorm has
been tested and has passed an independent and detailed
security evaluation conducted by Symantec. According to
the report, the overall design o the Cognos 8 platormemploys a robust architecture or secure reporting and
analysis. The security assessment also conrmed that
Cognos understands sound security practices and has
surpassed industry best practices by designing a secure
architecture and ramework or reporting and analysis
applications. The audit concluded that, at the time o the
assessment, none o the capabilities assessed contained
high risk instances o common Web application
vulnerabilities.3
The Cognos 8 platorm oers enterprise customers a
comprehensive oundation to address security concerns,
including the areas o authentication, access control,data-level security, application rewall, and encryption.
Meet service commitments with
a complete view o system activity
The Cognos 8 platorm gives system administrators
visibility into system processes and activity, and
capabilities to let them proactively manage the
deployment more eectively.
Security Requirements Cognos Delivers
Leverages enterprise Authentication: Pre-built integration with leading security providers and security
security investments API or customer security systems.
during user logon process
Leverages enterprise Access control: Granular user access right established within Cognos or a
security investments third-party security provider
when determining user Centralized security management.
access rights
Ensure users only see Data level access rights: Security o all objects and inormation, rom olders,
the inormation they are subject areas, individual reports, analysis, metrics, scorecards and dashboards,
permitted to see events and alerts, portal pages, data connections, etc.
Prevent hostile attacks Application rewall: Additional level o web security preventing unauthorized and
service interruption access to platorm services by monitoring trac between services.
Prevent vulnerability o Encryption: Encryption rom data source to presentation using industry-standard
data, temporary les encryption algorithms such as Triple DES and AES.
and communications
Enterprise Scale
Sel-aware, peer-to-peer services. Administrators
have distributable services that can sel-manage,
sel-spawn, and sel-start. Deploy services in aconguration that best ts with the environment
and serves the requirements.
Linear scalability. Administrators have services
that can be scaled-up or scaled-out. Scalability
provides predictable linear response to
workloads.
Zero-ootprint or end users. Administrators ace
no client-side installs, downloads, plug-ins, or
need to change user PC settings or congurations.
Deploy solutions to a large number o users with
minimal deployment eort.
Comprehensive security. Administrators can
leverage one or more existing third party or
custom security providers to give users seamless
single sign-on. Flexibility to apply access control
to capabilities, data-level security, ull encryption,
and application rewall ensures data can only be
accessed by authorized users and systems.
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With the Cognos 8 platorms task-oriented system
monitoring, administrators have a consolidated interace
organized around administrative task groupings.
This provides a holistic view o what is happening in
the system ranging rom report activity to specic
dispatcher workloads. It also lets you allocateadministrative roles based on task. This avoids having to
provide every administrator with complete access.
With proactive administration, administrators can
access all the metrics and summary views they require to
troubleshoot or identiy potential issues. With the ability
to set thresholds on hundreds o metrics, the system
can notiy administrators o a potential issue BEFORE
business users are aected or start to call.
Through the Cognos 8 platorm, administrators can
take action on behal o users or scheduled reports.
You can set priorities on scheduled reports and changethose priorities at any time. With report re-run, you
can re-submit jobs to only re-run ailed reports while
maintaining all the user credentials and report parameters.
Manage the process o introducing change
Once the system is up and running, it is rarely static.
There are constant changes to address. With successul
perormance management deployments, users start
buzzing about new capabilities available in newer
versions o the product. They want to know when these
capabilities will be available to them to use.
While new user requests are coming in, IT may also be
assessing dierent hardware or environment options. Or,
the DBAs working with the IT manager are looking at
upgrading to the latest version o databases.
IT administrators need a way to streamline the process o
assessing the impact such changes may have. They need a
consistent way o introducing the change, testing it, and
resolving any issues to ensure change is adopted successully.
Complete view o system activity
Task-oriented system monitoring. Administrators
have a consolidated view o all system activity,
rom scheduled and interactive reports to servers
and dispatchers. Eectively monitor the workings
o the complete solution.
Proactive administration. Administrators have
system metrics, ability to set thresholds, and
monitor them to identiy anomalies. Streamline
troubleshooting and identiy system trends over
time to optimize operations.
Integration with 3rd party enterprise management
systems (EMS). Administrators can access metrics
rom EMS solutions such as IBM Tivoli and
HP OpenView. Manage BI as part o an overallenterprise administration environment.
Report re-run. Administrators have ability to
rerun ailed reports on a users behal and restart
rom the point o ailure. Minimize business
interruption caused by report issues.
Queue prioritization. Administrators have control
to change priority o a scheduled report at any
time. Optimize delivery o reports to users based
on their request or business demands.
Identify issues before receiving the support call.
Test, compare, and record report results between two versions of Cognos software.
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value rom the Cognos 8 platorm
How dos IT gin rom xisting instmnts with th fxibiityto rspond to nw dmnds?
When organizations choose new IT applications,
IT managers must ensure important technology
requirements are addressed:
IT managers and architects need to know technology
solutions support broader enterprise standards such as
portals, Web, security, operating systems, and more.
They also evaluate t with their preerred deployment
strategy, infuencing how and where an application is
deployed and the hardware required.
The solution must be fexible enough to t uture
requirements as well.
With these criteria in mind, IT managers must also ensure
the solutions are simpleboth or the users to adopt and
or IT to build. For users, the IT manager must think
about how to deploy the solution in the world in whichusers work everyday.
Simpliy the eort to deploy and manage
perormance management
The Cognos 8 platorm is built rom the ground up on a
modern service-oriented architecture (SOA). The service-
oriented architecture is open and standards based using
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Service
Description Language (WSDL), and Web Services or
Remote Portlets (WSRP) among others to achieve the ease o
implementation and integration promised in an SOA world.
With open standards, the Cognos 8 platorm gives
organizations the fexibility to leverage existing IT
environment standards without duplicating unctions
such as security or dealing with issues associated with
proprietary application servers or rich client tools.Cognos is open to run on any web server and complies
with existing routers and rewalls.
The Cognos 8 platorm is environment neutral. It is not
tied to a particular technology stack, and can leverage
any combination o existing environment standards.
Organizations can run the Cognos 8 platorm with
existing portals, databases, and operating systems.
Adopt the preerred inrastructure strategy
IT managers need the reedom and fexibility to deployperormance management where it best ts their
inrastructure, now and in the uture. For some customers
this means large, powerul servers managed centrally.
For others, the preerred approach is a clustered hardware
environment. For others still, they have started adopting
new technology options such as virtualization. IT
departments oten establish deployment strategies based
on optimizing the hardware environment and reducing the
cost o operating IT systems. A perormance management
application must be able to adapt to the chosen IT
strategy to minimize the cost to deploy.
Regardless o the deployment strategy chosen,the Cognos 8 platorm can scale up or out across
heterogeneous environments. Based on SOA, the platorm
is location transparentall services plug into a ubiquitous
Ensure environment ft with architecture
Standardsbased. IT is assured the perormance
management solution ts with evolving technology
requirements. Modern web services-based protocols
and standards t with the evolution to SOA.
Environment-neutral. IT can leverage existing
heterogeneous platorms, security, portal, and web
environments. Have condence to adopt current
inrastructure and adapt as standards evolve.
Build to adapt to todays requirements and ready to adapt to tomorrow.
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network using the Internet protocols o SOAP and XML.
As a result, services do not need to know where other
services reside to communicate with them. This gives
IT an ecient means to leverage the available capacity
across the entire network, and ensures that the businessdoes not have to concern itsel with where a particular
service is deployed.
The Cognos 8 platorm is based on peer-to-peer services.
To be ecient, these peer-to-peer services must be loosely
coupled, with each perorming a discrete unction. No
service needs to know how others do their jobs, what they
are doing at any time, or where they reside. As a result,
loosely coupled, peer-to-peer services provide tremendous
fexibility in conguration. IT can build the solution to t
the broader deployment strategy already in place.
This was especially important to one customer wantinga way to manage peak usage periods. At the end o every
month there was an increase in demand or reports.
Rather than investing in idle capacity or those ew days
in the month, this customer leveraged their development
and test environments or production tasks to meet
the increased demand. They did not require additional
hardware investment and they were able to meet their
service level commitments.
Extend capabilities as user needs changeWith the single open application program interace (API),
customers have ull programming access to Cognos 8
sotware unctionality. They also have the fexibility to
embed perormance management capabilities in other
applications or business processes.
With the Cognos 8 platorm, the single open API, ounded
on modern SOAP and XML protocols, provides a simple
means or integration using any Integrated Development
Environment (IDE). The API lets the Cognos platorm
integrate with Microsot Oce, business perormancemanagement (BPM) solutions, enterprise search
capabilities, and other applications. The API also ensures
partners and customers can extend Cognos 8 unctionality
and integrate IT custom solutions, or add business
unctionality to address specic user requirements.
The purpose-built nature o Cognos 8 platorm services
means that new Cognos-based applications can easily
leverage existing services, such as query or presentation
services. Adding new unctionality can augment an
existing service or provide an additional service that
draws on an existing service. Once a new service is
introduced to the platorm, it is available to all servicesin the platorm. IT doesnt have to make changes in
multiple places to ensure all platorm capabilities can
take advantage o it.
For example, you can add new data sources like Salesorce
com and immediately make that data available to all user
capabilities. Or you can deliver Cognos Go! Mobile to
deliver access to existing reports without requiring any re-
authoring or changes to existing capabilities.
Flexible inrastructure strategy
Location transparency. IT can deploy any number
o services on any server and any number oservers across heterogeneous environments.
Services are accessible anywhere.
Flexible peer-to-peer services. IT can choose to
deploy services co-located or co-resident with
other applications or databases to minimize trac
and maximize server usage. Services provide
innitely fexible distribution to t the chosen
inrastructure strategy.
Extend capabilities
Single, open API. Application developers gain
ull access to Cognos 8 unctionality within
an integrated development environment.
New capabilities and custom integrations are
easy to implement to address unique or new
requirements.
Purpose-built services. IT can rely on Cognos
innovation to enhance and add services, data
sources, and capabilities. Retain fexibility and
keep pace with business demands.
Embeddable services. IT can embed business
intelligence into applications, business process
management, enterprise search and other business
initiatives. Ensure BI is accessible by the business in
their amiliar workplace at the point o decision.
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value rom the Cognos 8 platorm
Smmry
With the Cognos 8 platorm, business users gain access
to all data through a consistent business model. IT
proessionals can access data wherever it resides and
deliver that inormation in a complete, consistent and
accurate view. The resultInormation that businessunderstands, owns and trusts; giving them condence in
it to make the decisions that drive perormance.
The Cognos 8 platorm gives IT the reedom to implement
and evolve their inormation strategy. IT proessionals
have the fexibility to optimize perormance in their
environment without changing backend systems. With
collaborative data modeling and built-in best practices,
data proessionals reduce the time to respond to requests
and can deliver inormation consistently or business users.
The Cognos 8 platorm is built to meet round-the-
clock demands with broad system management. ITcan condently deploy perormance management
applications across the enterprise with ull ault tolerance
and comprehensive security. Manage the health o the
perormance management system and meet service
commitments through proactive administration and
task-oriented system monitoring. Respond to newrequirements through streamlined upgrade management.
Built on a modern service-oriented architecture, and
based on open standards and completely environment
neutral, the Cognos 8 platorm leverages technology
standards today and as they evolve. Implement the ideal
hardware deployment strategy with peer-to-peer services
and location transparency to t with inrastructure
today and tomorrow. Address new and unique business
requirements with a single, open API and purpose-
built services to enable IT to extend how perormance
management can be delivered across their organization.
abot Cognos
Cognos provides enterprise planning and business
intelligence sotware and services to help companies
plan, understand, and manage nancial and operational
perormance.
Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications,
best practices, and a broad network o partners to delivera complete perormance system. The Cognos perormance
system is open and adaptive, leveraging your existing ERP,
packaged applications, and database investments. It lets
you answer the questions How are we doing? Why are
we on or o track? What should we do about it? and
lets you understand and monitor current perormance
while planning or your uture.
Cognos serves more than 23,000 customers in 135+
countries. Our top-100 enterprise customers consistently
outperorm market indexes. Cognos perormancemanagement solutions and services are also available
rom more than 3,000 worldwide partners and resellers.
For more inormation, visit us at www.cognos.com.
For mor Inormtion
Visit the Cognos Web site at www.cognos.com
Rqst C
To request a call or ask a question, go to
www.cognos.com/contactme. A Cognos representative
will respond to your enquiry within two business days.
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www.cognos.com
( 01 / 08)
gLoBAL
Cognos Incorporated
3755 Riverside Drive
P.O. Box 9707, Station T
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K1G 4K9
AsIA/PAcIFIc
Cognos PTY Limited
Level 2 110 Pacifc Highway
St. Leonards, NSW 2065
Australia
EURoPE
Cognos Limited
Westerly Point
Market Street
Bracknell, Berkshire
UK RG12 1QB
noRTH AmERIcA
Cognos Corporation
15 Wayside Road
Burlington, MA
USA 01803